My Fair Lady remake

Keira Knightley is in talks to star as the simple Cockney flower girl who is transformed into a lady.

While it’s being called an update, the film will use the tuner’s score and retain its 1912 setting. Where possible, producers Kenworthy and Mackintosh intend to shoot the film on location in the original London settings of Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Wimpole Street and the Ascot racecourse. (The 1964 Warner Bros. film was lensed entirely on Hollywood soundstages.)

The filmmakers plan to adapt Alan Jay Lerner’s book more fully for the screen by drawing additional material from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” which served as the source material for the musical. The goal is to dramatize the emotional highs and lows of Doolittle as she undergoes the ultimate metamorphosis under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins.

Kenworthy, who worked with Knightley on “Love Actually,” said, “With 40 years of hindsight, we’re confident that by setting these wonderful characters and brilliant songs in a more realistic context, and by exploring Eliza’s emotional journey more fully, we will honour both Shaw and Lerner at the same time as engaging and entertaining contemporary audiences the world over.”

EXTRAs: “My Fair Lady,” with book and lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, was first staged in 1956 featuring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Audrey Hepburn and Harrison starred in the Oscar-winning George Cukor-helmed film.